Editorial: Bravery of LeMoyne College students still has relevance 53 years later

Former LeMoyne College students on Friday gathered outside the Walgreens at Main and Madison to commemorate the 53rd anniversary of the Memphis sit-ins and protests of 1960 against segregationist practices in public and private facilities.

On Sunday in Atlanta, the nation’s first black president addressed the 2013 graduating class of Morehouse College, the all-male historically black institution that graduated national leaders such as civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., magazine publisher Robert E. Johnson, actor Samuel L. Jackson, movie producer and director “Spike” Lee and Ralph B. Everett, president and chief executive officer of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

President Barack Obama, elected to his second term in November, is a beneficiary of the bravery exhibited by the LeMoyne students and other students at historically black colleges and universities across the South, who were arrested or beaten in the fight to break Jim Crow’s stranglehold on segregation.

Their sacrifices helped pave the way for the racial progress we have made in the past five decades, which has brought about a change in the way people are accepted in society. Today, the question is: Are you prepared to compete in a world of opportunities and, once you’re on the team, can you make a contribution?

“...We’ve got no time for excuses. Not because the bitter legacies of slavery and segregation have vanished entirely; they have not. Not because racism and discrimination no longer exist; we know they are still out there...”

But, the president added, “Nobody cares how tough your upbringing was. Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination. And, you have to remember that whatever you’ve gone through, it pales in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured — and they overcame them. You can overcome them, too.”

In 1960, the LeMoyne College students did not let the possibility of arrest, beatings and career ostracism deter them from taking action to make Memphis a better place for all its residents.

Fifty-three years later, the president issued a similar challenge to the Morehouse graduates, but with this reminder: As more success comes, think about how that success can be used to help those who are still struggling to obtain a good quality of life.